Printer identification encoding

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Printer identification encoding is a technology used by many manufacturers of printers, in which the model, serial number and other identifying information about the printer is printed on every page produced.

Color laser printers appear to be the type mostly involved, the measure being brought in during the 1990s by companies such as Xerox seeking to reassure governments that their printers would not be used for the purposes of forgery. The identification is by means of a watermark, often using yellow-on-white, embedded in the printout of each page, and in conjunction with other information can be used to identify the printer which was used to print any document originally produced on a wide range of popular printers. It may be actual text, or a repeated pattern of dots throughout the page, more easily visible under blue light or with a magnifying glass, and is intended to be very hard to notice with the naked eye.